The construction of modern vending machines has included the use of card readers to provide convenience for customers and, in some part, to reduce or eliminate the fraud associated with cash transactions. Credit cards and debit cards used in vending machine operations come in two major varieties. The first is a magnetic stripe card that encodes information on a strip of magnetic material fixed to a side of the card. The magnetic stripe card is read by a magnetic head in the card reader. The second type of card is a chip card which includes a semiconductor chip embedded in the card itself. Electric contact points are provided on the surface of the card to allow information to be read from or written into the memory systems within the semiconductor chip within the card.
As with any system intended for use by the public, card readers have become victims of vandalism and misuse. Card readers on vending machines can be jammed by cards which are of incorrect shape or thickness. In addition, vandals or thieves can damage the internal workings of card readers by inserting knives or coat hangers or other probes into the card readers. Prior card reader systems have proved to be very susceptible to vandalism and misuse and, as such, have not been as reliable as necessary for public vending machine operations.
For public instruments such as pay telephones, service calls to repair a vandalized system are a significant portion of the costs of operating the pay telephone. As such, a need has arisen for a card reader system which prevents vandalism or misuse of the card reader from affecting future operation of the card reader and the system to which it allows access.